Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Nature is full of mysteries and to love it better, one has to unravel its secrets.

Out of world’s total 8.7 million known species, over 140,000 rely on freshwater habitats for their undisputed survival: for food, incomes, resources or simply protection.

But the problem is that more freshwater species are rapidly getting extinct than terrestrial or marine species. Nearly one-third of these already face extinction, prominent reasons being habitat loss, competition by alien species, pollution, and over-harvesting.

And despite serious attempts, this problem is expected to worsen as the human population grows and planet ages with extreme climate change.

While the highly turbid waters of the Amazon, the Mekong and the Congo have largely concealed its species, much to the helplessness of marine Biologists. Freshwater systems seem more promising to reveal its beings.

Therefore, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and UK-based NatureMetrics, known as the environmental DNA (eDNA) specialists, are collaborating to determine the threats and sites of importance for these species.

Why understanding Freshwater species is an asset of biodiversity conservation?

More than 94% of all freshwater fisheries (55% of all freshwater species) occur in developing countries (FAO, 2007) boosting the livelihoods of presumably world’s poorest populations.

Mekong River basin alone serves some 55.3 million people directly depending on freshwater fish for nutrition and livelihoods, with an estimated average fish consumption of 56.6 kg/person/year.

These species even help regulate trophic structure, influence regional stability, resilience, and check upon the food web dynamics including balancing nutrients and consequent algal growth in nutrient-rich lakes from shore to pelagic and deeper zones.

This happens because fish mineralize available nitrogen and phosphorus in water, incoming from excessive fertilizer usage, using excretion and defecation making these nutrients available again for primary production.

Carbon sequestration and reducing sedimentation within water is also influenced by the species around, studies have ascertained this behavior.

eBioAtlas programme: proposed encyclopedia for freshwater species

In the Anthropocene with ongoing sixth mass extinction on Earth, nearly one million species are at risk of losing their identities.

The $15m (£10.6m) project aims to target areas most affected by the climate crisis and human expansion.

Realizing the urgent need to fill the knowledge gaps, project will look for genetic material in the water, starting with analysis of Malagarasi River basin in Tanzania that flows into Lake Tanganyika.

The project will pick up whatever is genetically available such as faeces, mucus and other matter released by organisms to establish their presence in an ecosystem.

eDNA technique uses DNA barcodes against every specie to be identified. While the data exists in reference libraries for some groups of species, collecting barcodes for millions of plants, animals and other organisms has remain unfulfilled.

It is important to understand the difference between the two: DNA profiling includes determining an individual’s DNA while DNA barcoding deals with identifying a specie’s fundamental DNA.

Head of IUCN’s freshwater biodiversity unit exclaims: “Our aim is to do a global eDNA blitz if we get sufficient funding. We can’t just do little bits here and there. I think this is a real gamechanger because identification can be so much faster.”

“If you are lucky and you have clear rivers, like we do in the UK in some cases, you might see some of the life underwater. But if you go to a river like the Mekong with giant rays and giant catfishes, you’ll never see them because of the turgid water. What you don’t see, you don’t miss.”

NatureMetrics officer explains further, pointing out the underlying bias in different regions: “If you’re looking at animals in the UK and Europe, the databases are pretty complete, even for insects. It’s a different story in the Amazon, for example, where only around a quarter of fish species have been identified.”

“But the amazing thing about eDNA is that even if you can’t name everything, you’ve captured the diversity and you’ve got the sequences and can retrospectively add new names on data you’ve already got as references grow.”

The newly allocated eDNA sampling is much quicker and trustworthy than traditional surveying methods such as electrofishing and using nets.

Previous works of eDNA:

It has been previously used in UK to identify the habitat of protected bird specie called great crested newt and support its conservation work.

eDNA profiling has found relevance even in the Peruvian Amazon, the water samples were used to survey the habitat of pink river dolphins and manatees as well as an extensive web of life around them, including jaguars, monkeys, catfish and bats.

On these lines, Scientists will collect about 30,000 waters samples from major freshwater ecosystems around the world like the life-pouring Ganges and Niger deltas.

These will then be passed through a simple filtering kit to be analyzed by NatureMetrics. One of such kit costs about £200 but is effective in providing analysis of close to 200,000 sequences.

When the world is on another level crisis and India seems extremely vulnerable, biodiversity prospection is a rejoice. Indian waters, especially the sacred Ganges holds key to survival of many species. Why should we be afraid to explore and understand Nature like never before.

By Alaina Ali Beg

I am a lover of all arts and therefore can dream myself in all places where the World takes me. I am an avid animal lover and firmly believes that Nature is the true sorcerer.

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